As I sit here, in our kitchen that is now doubling as a bedroom, sweating a little less than usual, I’m listening to one of the best CD’s ever. It was a Christmas present that my one and only community mate, Jessicakes Simonetti, put together for me. The CD is a combination of songs that my family and friends, my chosen family, chose to send me for the Navidad season. This Christmas I felt something I’ve never felt before, a family oriented holiday without the family. Now, I have my Paraguayian family, and of course my sister from another mista, but still something was missing. Physically missing were home cooked meals with that special Italian lovin’, scarves and hats and inside out pajamas wishing for snow, and the shopping rush that begins Black Friday and is as chaotic as chaotic comes. But it was more than all that that left me feeling like no other Christmas before. It was being surrounded by people embraced in their family’s love and cherishing each other that made me realize how much I missed my own crazy clan. The phone calls and skype dates helped make me feel closer, but let the tears roll at the same time. And through all of that ‘I won’t be home for Christmas’ muck, we made it work. We made it a Christmas I will never forget and a Christmas where I felt wrapped in a blanket of love. I will squeeze that blanket close when I need it most, because the people in my life are AWESOME. I am so blessed I could just scream. Eeehhhhhh! Jess and I exchanged our LOVE-filled presents under our handmade snowflakes, beside our paper fireplace and matching stockings and of course our 2 foot Christmas tree made of books and decorated in garland, shoelaces, bandanas, measuring tape, and post-its. In summation, it was a good Christmas; thanks Santa for sending that Christmas Spirit that comes no matter where you are.
In other news, Paraguay is in its ‘hotter’ season nowadays. We have been told there is hot and hotter here, and we understand what that means a little more now. Hot. Hot sweat dripping, water in the toilet steaming, sleeping in pools that you don’t want to be swimming in, everything is melting, praying for rain, can’t talk because it takes too much energy hot. To think I was complaining about a big snow storm last year where I had to climb to work. To say life in Paraguay is nothing like I’ve ever experienced wouldn’t be giving it justice. Maybe this little list will help:
You know you are a volunteer in Paraguay when:
Your fellow volunteer screams in the shower, but you aren’t in a hurry to move because you think it is because of the thumb size ants in the bathroom. After continual screaming, you go to find out it is because she is standing in the shower all soaped up without water. The water went out and you just have to sit and wait it out until it comes back on again.
You have a, what seems to be, an ingrown hair in your armpit area. When it grows to be the size of an egg, you consult a doctor to find out it is a boil. When the egg pops, you are rushed, by foot, to the local free clinic. (Apparently, during this process, some gross puss ran down and got into another skin cell, allowing for a second boil two weeks later.) As you hold a tissue to your arm and wait to see the doctor, you are ushered in a hospital like room. You lay down on this bed, that has some blood stains on it and is covered by recycled plastic and notice the dead bugs and light bulbs being held to the lamps by band-aids. As you convince yourself to stay because your arm feels like it is going to explode, a man comes in with a gash in the back of his head. Speaking drunken Guarani, he is held down by his daughter and the doctor, who was coming to work with you, but now tells you to wait a second while he sews up this man’s head right next to you. This was an experience my friends. Eventually, I got my arm sliced open and the doctor did what he had to do, only to end with an injection in the tooshy, with no explanation. Only in Paraguay. Currently on prescription for the second edition to this Boil 101, and yes my prescription was written out for aerosol deodorant, Lady Speed Stick to be specific. Here’s to hoping that sprays away my worries.
You are monitoring your chipa intake to once a week.
Putting up your mosquito nets takes all day and then when you try to go under the net and into bed, you feel like you are army crawling. You have only slept under the net once because it is such a hassle. Hence all the bites you have covering your body. Sacrifice.
You wear sweats one day and the next you cannot take your clothes off fast enough because you are sweating just thinking about taking your clothes off.
You are woken up at 8:30 on a Saturday, only to be made fun of for sleeping in, by your best friends, the retired sisters.
You go to pick up a package and end up sharing the cookies in the package with the ladies who work at the post office. Oh and packages take longer to get here than it takes for a young mother cat to nurture kittens in her belly. Literally.
Your casita turns into Hotel Meow for the community cat who gets perturbed when you wake her up in the morning after she climbed in through a window and is sprawled out on your couch. You later find out that the vomit that you cleaned up throughout the house was her morning sickness because your number one cat client is pregnant. Jump to a few weeks later, when both kittens couldn’t survive the Paraguayian heat and are no longer with us. RIP kittens.
You are genuinely excited when your Friday night consists of mascara under your eyes, a headband, and screaming, “Vamos Muchachos” at the screen of Paraguay vs. Ecuador game with fellow 70, 80, 90 yr old friends who happen to also be sisters of the Good Shepherd.
The regular pushing and shoving on the buses as now become normal, and you know how to perfectly squeeze 50 people on a school bus with 20 seats.
Other things that have become normal: sweating in your own sweat. Daily criticisms from the sisters, not our retired home girls. Having red dirt stained clothes. Dinner time at 8, bed time at 9, maybe 10 if we are feeling wild. Teal, Aqua, Green color. You cannot go one day or one inch without seeing this teal, aqua color that Paraguay loves. It is the color of walls, houses, shirts, it is everywhere. Being a Nanduti model, enough said.
I’m sure this list will only continue to grow, but for 2011 that’s that. Paraguay has given us laughs, cries, rice, bugs, bug bites, and four months worth of memories in 2011. For 2012, we are starting off in Chile and Argentina in Southern Patagonia, the end of the world! We are landing there on New Year’s Eve and planning on taking it from there for over two weeks, it is our summer vacation. It will be an experience, but what isn’t an experience? Happy New Year, make it a good one; there was a crazy rumor going around that this may be the last one. Eh, who listens to rumors anyway? (Adele)
Just love
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